"We managed to catch Lewis but it was impossible to pass.” - Kimi Raikkonen

Perhaps one of the dull weekends in terms of on-track action? Well, There will always be conflicting opinions but this weekend proved to be otherwise. Even with the introduction of DRS and KERS in a bid to improve the excitement of the sport and with the Pirelli tyres playing its part in Team’s strategy and such, Nothing could change the way Hungaroring behaved on Sunday, With overtakings proving to be difficult once again, Hamilton dominated all through the weekend and his win was something more on the predicted lines. But there were few talking points through the race and with the most obvious thing being whether Lotus is now emerging as a force to reckon with..!

"In fact, I reckon that it was one of the toughest races I’ve ever driven - but, guess what, I’ll savour it all the more for that. I was under a lot of pressure throughout all 69 laps. First, Romain Grosjean and then Kimi Raikkonen were right behind me, all the way through, and I had to look after my tyres without letting my pace drop, which was pretty tricky at times. It isn’t a static situation when a race goes like that. The feel of the car is changing all the time. You get different messages from the tyres with every lap. But they lasted - I managed to make them last" - Lewis Hamilton

LOTUS are on Sublime form!

"My start was not too bad but then we had some issues with the KERS and I lost a place to Fernando Alonso. When we got it working again we were stuck in the pack so it was a bit frustrating" - Kimi Raikkonen"It’s very hard to overtake here; every time I came close to someone in front I would lose a bit of front end grip which made it impossible" - Romain GrosjeanAnyone starting from the front row of the grid would always target a victory and there was nothing wrong with Romain Grosjean who clearly stated that he was in pursuit of victory. But someone from Lotus camp had different ideas, This other famous Frenchman in the Team had signaled his intentions of a large haul of points if not for a victory as that would fetch them lot more than just a victory alone. It turned out that one of them had achieved what he set out for.

"It was an excellent race from both our drivers, from the E20 and from the whole team. We made very strong progress with a good haul of Drivers’ and Constructors’ points today" - James Allison

"Both cars on the podium end a pretty good weekend for the team. For everyone back at Enstone we must pay credit as they work so hard for results like this, but seldom get to taste the champagne at the track" - Eric Boullier

As compared to last weekend in Germany where the Lotus team were struggling in qualifying and did not have a good starting position, There was no case as such this time around and with a P2 and P5 on the grid, things were looking bright but one thing that was not with them was the track and everyone knew that a lot of overtakings were not technically possible but the Team as a whole were not let down. The start was particularly not great but Thanks to Jenson who kept Vettel at bay, Things turned out slightly better and Grosjean and the team decided that it was finally the time to fight for victory and the Frenchman kept Lewis in his sights all through the first two stints. Things looked even better for the Lotus Team when DRS was enabled on Grosjean’s car but Lewis Hamilton timed his laps perfectly and ensured that he either slipped out of DRS zone or ensured that there wouldn’t a DRS move by using KERS at appropriate places. On the other side, It was Kimi who was on his own apart from making timely appearances in his route to a third place fight between Button and Vettel, Kimi ensured he stayed within the Top 4 and went on a different strategy to his teammate. It took 21 laps for Kimi to drive into his stop along with Webber, That first stint was spent most of the time behind the Alonso before unleashing himself for a brief lead at the front. After the Pit stops, Kimi was ahead of Alonso and this is when he drove a lonely stint while trying to close in on Vettel. Around lap 37, He then set a fastest lap of the race making his intentions of pushing with the same set of tyres. 8 laps later, he made an entry into the pits for his final stop not before pushing harder with the used tyres and with an encouragement given by his Engineer who relatively asked him to push even in his In-Lap. Out of his exit from the Pits, Kimi banged wheels with his teammate and forced him wide onto the Marbles and it took a bit of time for Grosjean to really come back although not losing a place to Vettel was a huge bonus for the Team which otherwise would have ended in war or words. With Lewis leading from the front with 4.4 seconds to his name, It was a catch up game for Kimi who put on some amazing laps to get Hamilton within his eye sights and by lap 54, Raikkonen came within the DRS limits and from there on, The battle was straight between Lotus and Mclaren and more specifically Raikkonen and Hamilton. But then Hamilton drove an amazing final stint with him extending his tyres for more laps then what was anticipated.

"On a different track layout which allows overtaking I think we could have won this race.” - Eric Boullier

With all due respect to the Hamilton, As even he admitted, The E20 proved to amazingly fast. May be on the other day with a different track, The story would have been different. Raikkonen even with the fresher tyres comparatively to Hamilton couldn’t just get the job done. Hamilton drove for 29 laps in his final stint and clearly the updates they have done to the car were helping to decrease their tyre wear as well and all through the weekend, Mclaren and especially Lewis were very strong and he looked like the man to beat for he came, saw and conquered the Hungarian Grand Prix. Now back to the Lotus story, Kimi Raikkonen at the start complained of KERS problem and it turned out to be functioning 50% below its actual efficiency. Main problems for their KERS unit was with overheating. And also on a comparative note, Lotus doesn’t have a huge KERS unit as with their Mercedes counterparts who have a tremendous unit. Raikkonen’s KERS was also taken off in his final stint while he was in pursuit of Hamilton in a bid to use it to the extreme on final stages of the lap. It would have been an interesting fight for Lotus had it not been for the technical issues. Grosjean meanwhile who had a bad weekend in Germany was particularly happy on his return to form and there was not a thing he could have done in the race to clinch that win. Grosjean was having problems which was clearly beyond his control, A slow first Pit Stop to start off with was not a great thing a driver would ask for. Around 4.9 seconds for the Pitstop in the days when 2.3 is the segment benchmark tells you the story. The other big problem that Grosjean suffered was the time when he was struck behind Hamilton in his second stint which was crucial to the result as Grosjean was in option tyres while Hamilton was driving on the Prime and this is time when Grosjean should have really pulled ahead of Hamilton but it turned out otherwise.

With just one point behind the second place Mclaren team, Lotus so far have done a brilliant job considering where they were this time last season. With a set of Interesting updates they have scheduled for second half of the season, They are surely taking the fight to their nearest rivals!

Red Bull - Unlucky!

"I was stuck behind Jenson in the first stint; he was slower and we lost some time there, but of course you can’t just pit and come out in clean air, there’s traffic, so there’s not much we could have done. The tyres were not too bad at the end, but we thought that we should try something, the tyres on the cars in front could have fallen off, but it didn’t happen." - Sebastian Vettel

"I was quicker in the closing stages, but it’s hard to overtake here and I couldn’t get the job done. Still, we moved up three places from the start, we have good points and it’s very open for the rest of the year" - Mark WebberTwo contrasting strategies to their drivers with one of them running option compound while the other driver from the midfield running on the prime. The opening lap proved to be a mixed response with the Australian gaining three places while the young German in a bid to attack Grosjean on the outside ran high into the Kerbs allowing Button to take the place. The long chase only started for this Austrian Team and in the end proved to be the long race. Vettel clearly frustrated in not managing to make a pass on Button who was comparatively slower kept on pushing the team asking them to come up with a different strategy and likewise to Grosjean, Vettel lost lots of time on the option tyres while trying to chase Button who was on the Medium tyres and this for one reason kept on insisting the team to do something with the strategy. It was always a chase for Vettel following his second stop, He caught Grosjean and yet again was unable to make a pass and his luck further deteriorated when Kimi out of nowhere leapfrogged this battle to take the second place. We seen on plenty of occasions when a late stop actually assists the driver and the Team but on this occasion when Vettel made a third pit stop on lap 59, It raised few eyebrows for this was certainly a very late stop in the race and in the end as expected Vettel was trailing Grosjean for third under a second as they crossed the start/finish line. They did something similar to Webber by bringing for a third stop which took him to surprise as well but they did clarified on Webber’s stop saying it was down to a differential issue which was putting further stress on the tyres and that’s the reason they had to make another stop.

"Sebastian in and out again {For his third stop} ahead of Alonso; he then chased down the leaders over the last ten laps, but unfortunately there weren’t quite enough laps left" - Christian Horner

Red Bull were clearly at a Tactical disadvantage for once, The luck wasn’t on their side although it could have gone further worse had Vettel got stuck behind on Alonso following his third stop or if Button found his way past Senna, Neither of them happened and this is the best they could have hoped for. On a different track may be that late pitstop could have worked for it did on few occasions this season. The Team still has a healthy edge in the constructors championship but most importantly they have to focus a lot on driver’s championship.

The Revival of Bruno!

"I am pleased for Bruno who had an excellent race and the six points are a very welcome boost for the whole team going into the August break" - Mark Gillan

Poor luck, driver errors, strategy errors and you can perhaps add more to the list, Bruno Senna despite being unofficially pitched as the main driver for the Team before the start of the season found himself struggling to match the pace of his teammate and on numerous occasions nothing went right for him. With Pastor Maldonado’s win at Barcelona, the equation changed completely but again not all people went with Maldonado and many were hoping for some sort of retreat from Bruno to completely outclass his teammate. He started off with a low 16th place at Australia before coming back at Sepang and China where he finished 6th and 7th respectively before heading onto a weak patch of 6 races where he was outclassed by his teammate. This weekend was quite a revival of sorts after having finished in 3rd in FP2 and 4th in FP3, Senna squeezed into Q3 and eventually started 9th on the grid for the race. The race was nevertheless was one of his strong showing in recent times. This strong 7th might be just the breakthrough the entire team might be looking for and it’s quite important for Bruno to deliver some strong results in the second half of the season.

Inconsistent Saubers or a Step Up from the Caterham’s?"We were just lacking the pace. We tried to stretch my first stint for a different strategy, but in the end I think there was just nothing that could get us into the points today" - Sergio Perez

"We have simply been too slow here. We have been struggling all weekend, Finally I got the call to come in because of an hydraulic leak and that was it. For some reason the Hungaroring didn’t work for us" - Kamui Kobayashi

Arguably there was some moments of Joy at the Caterham during the halfway mark through the race as their drivers were pretty much matching the pace of Saubers and also Toro Rosso, Well, one has to wonder what this means for the Team Some sections of the F1 Universe were tweeting as to. Whether the Caterham has really improved?

Well the answer would be a big NO, the Sauber has been struggling all through the weekend and something wasn’t just right. Having started way back, Sauber were facing an uphill task and some people across the globe were shouting for Sauber to do a one stop strategy but with their car lacking grip and struggling for balance, Sauber couldn’t do it although with Perez, it’s understood that they might have given it a thought. Just before a lap to the end of the race, Kobayashi retired with Hydraulic leak something that has gone unnoticed by large. That put an end to their miserable weekend. Sauber has a team has been very inconsistent, They have gone pointless in 5 races of the season and that hasn’t been a great record when fighting for a position no matter where!

They have got some pretty good traits with them being easy on tyres, This could give them a huge advantage at various tracks this season, We still have 9 races to go and they should be gambling on being more consistent as that will yield them more haul then go pointless all together.

"We're realistic about the performance of the car, but I think the balance and setup were very good this weekend. I'm also really pleased with how we managed the tyres and I think the strategy worked well" - Heikki Kovalainen

And as for Caterham, They have given it all and arguably this is their best season but with Formula 1 being ridiculously close, They weren’t simply getting it right to achieve their goals and with their biggest update at Silverstone not seeing enough mileage on Fridays, Thanks to the rain-gods and with their straightline test also being affected due to various reasons, They haven’t yet reached their potential with the new update. The Team has a huge potential and with them moving to the new factory, they got the resources and facilities to achieve what they have set to. But they may need more then form to succeed. {Read Luck}

It would be interesting to see how Teams approach the second half of the season, Bruno Senna and Williams in particular have got a nice breakthrough. With controversies surrounding Red Bull, The Austrian Team would be wary of what they are bringing as updates. What Ferrari couldn’t do it all through first half of the season, Alonso alone has done it for them. With the next few tracks being low downforce circuits, Ferrari should be bringing plenty of updates to help Alonso in his quest for a world championship. By the end of Summer break, We might be seeing the second driver at Ferrari for next season. With Kimi not particularly shutting down the doors for Ferrari return, Lotus should probably be aiming for wins in next few races to tempt Kimi to honor their contract. Plenty to look forward to for the second half of the season..

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